Page 33 of Stormswept Colorado

“Hey!” I looked over at Ayla, and she was smiling back at me, andfuckthat was a good feeling. Was there any possible way she was feeling it too?

Keep dreaming.

Ayla Maxwell could be with any man she wanted. Actors and rock stars and athletes lined up to date her. I had to put any attraction on my part out of my mind. She was a superstar in her twenties. I was a forty-year-old small-town cop.

But I could make sure she had a good trip, then send her safelyon her way back to her glamorous life in Los Angeles. A life I couldn’t begin to fathom, much less imagine being a part of.

Ollie wobbled toward the step ladder, so I jumped up to head him off. I had to help him down. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five p.m.,” I said over my shoulder. “Okay? Let me take care of this for you.”

“Okay,” Ayla whispered.

I saw something in her eyes then that I’d never expected. Trust. And if I reminded her of her father, of a past she wanted to forget, then I knew how much it meant that she was willing to try.

I wanted to deserve the trust Ayla was giving me. It felt like something precious, resting in the palm of my hand. Easy to crush if you didn’t take the utmost care. I couldn’t say where that image came from. But it felt like the truth.

Come hell or six feet of snow, I was getting her to that wedding.

Fuck. I wasn’t sure I could get Ayla to the wedding.

“The mountain pass between here and Hartley will be closed within the hour,” I said to my officers.

It was Friday afternoon. Hours before Ayla and I had been scheduled to leave. Overnight, the forecast had shifted, saying the storm would arrive earlier in Hart County than we’d expected. That was bad enough.

But the weather service had just issued another update, and it did not look good.

“This storm is moving very fast,” I explained. “Once it hits the mountains, it’s going to stall. The weather reports now say it’ll be dumping two inches an hour on the pass by tonight. Conditions will be too dangerous for travel.” The Department of Transportation had consulted with local authorities before making the final call, but I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

“But Ashford and Emma’s wedding,” Susan said.

“Yes, Iknow. Thankfully, the O’Neals left earlier this morning. Same with Piper. She texted that she and Ollie arrived in Hartley an hour ago. But the pass won’t open again until Sunday at the earliest.”

And I had to break that news to Ayla. Why hadn’t I listened to Jimmy Perkins when he was stocking up on toilet paper? Which was not a thought I’d ever anticipated having.

Seth put his hands on his hips. “We’ve got a lot of other people heading to Hartley. Both later today and tomorrow.”

“Yep. Unfortunately, they won’t be going anywhere if they haven’t left already. Including me.”

All our emergency services would be ready. We prepared regularly for situations like this, and we had major storms every season. But I already expected a flood of phone calls from irate Silver Ridge citizens, blaming me for the closure of the pass.

Then again, there was only one person in town right now who it killed me to disappoint. I remembered that look of trust in her eyes last night.

Surrender wasn’t in my nature. There had to be something I could do. I’d given her my word, and I wouldn’t break it.

After finishing up our meeting, I went to my office. But instead of going to my desk, I stared at the map of Hart County on my wall.

TWELVE

Ayla

“Thank you,Ayla. This has been an absolute pleasure.”

I smiled into the camera on my laptop. “For me too.”

“We’ll have to do it again.”

This reporter was from a prestigious magazine, one that managed to hold on to a physical circulation as well as an online following.

I’d been on the cover before. But after my last album’s disappointing numbers, they hadn’t asked me in a while. This was a big opportunity. A chance to get back to the front of the public’s mind. Exactly what I was supposed to want.

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